Roads to ride

As I formulate this post I realize the photos may all look pretty much the same, and while they can try to capture the essence of how pretty it is here, they can't convey the intensity of the riding. It's sort of an espresso of great rides, all winding, up, down, up, down, virtually nothing flat and no more than a few minutes of a straight line. Harlan has found us the narrow roads, mostly less than two lanes, and very quiet. But also a lot of steep stuff: 10% is a civilized grade, and you rest on the 7% slopes because there are long stretches of 14-19% with pitches up from that. We descended (thank gawd) a couple kilometers that were so steep that we think the breaking force contributed to H's tube tearing at the valve stem a few minutes later.







It's a good thing you can rely on espresso being available every few kilometers, because you have to be alert. The pavement can be gorgeous, smooth, and fast, with a deep pothole to surprise you when you're trying to look around at the view or the olive grove or the goats. Or it can go from new to gravel to decomposing and back to perfect in no predictable order that we can see.



The stats are consistently on the order of 1,500 feet of climbing for every 10 miles, which supports some happy consumption of pizza, pasta, and gelato. These last few days we've given our legs a little rest before ramping up to longer loops in the next week.